The present invention relates to an energy supply system and, more particularly, to a system which is able to effectively supply energy to a specific area and a control method of the system.
Hitherto, it is general that individual enterprise entities independently supply a main energy source such as electric power, gas, etc. In a partial area, supply of heat and cold, using electric power and gas as an energy source, so-called a distinct heating and cooling enterprise is conducted.
However, this enterprise also is run independently of an enterprise supplying the other energy source. Further, there also is an enterprise entity which introduces a co-generation system in view of improvement of the whole thermal efficiency which uses generated power for home consumption and supplies heat by using a part of exhaust heat. However for the entity a main object is to reduce a power generation cost, and an enterprise to supply widely the generated power in the area is not conducted. An example of a conventional technique relating to the co-generation system is disclosed in JP A 6-131004 in which a plurality of co-generation systems are used, and an energy supply means and a energy circulating means are controlled so that a cost of energy to be supplied to a plurality of energy consumption areas will be minimum. However, in the technique it is not considered to more efficiently do energy business by measuring a quantity of energy consumption of a customer and lump-sum charging. Further, since a main energy source is supplied by different enterprise entities, it is general that the quantities of consumption are measured independently and individually charged. However, there is proposed a system in which the consumption quantities of electricity, water and gas are measured and totally charged for residents of office buildings, etc., as in JP A 6-631132, for example, however, in this technique it is not considered to feed those measured values back to the energy supply system.
The above-mentioned conventional techniques have a problem that the energy sources are supplied by different enterprise entities, so that it-is difficult to supply combination energy optimum for a power-generation cost or a load on environment to energy-consuming customers in a specific area. Further, consumption quantities of energy are individually measured and charged, so that time is required for the treatment thereof and it is difficult to totally acknowledge energy consumption of respective customers. Although there are conventional techniques solving partially those problems, there was not anything to make efficient the energy supply business and realize as new business, by solving those problems.
An object of the present invention is to provide an energy supply system which efficiently supplies energy customers and makes it easy to synthetically keep trace of energy consumption of respective customers.
An energy supply system according to the present invention to achieve the above-mentioned object comprises: at least two means selected from means for generating electric power, means for heating a heat conveying medium to an atmospheric temperature or higher and means for cooling a heat conveying medium to the atmospheric temperature or lower; means for supplying at least two selected from electric power, heat of atmospheric temperature or higher and cold of atmospheric temperature or lower to a plurality of customers; means for measuring quantities of electric power, heat and cold, supplied to each of a plurality of customers; means for calculating usage charges for electric power, heat and cold, consumed by each of the customers on the basis of the supply quantities; and means for settling the usage charges.
Further, a method of operating an energy supply system having at least two means selected from means for generating electric power, means for heating a heat conveying medium to an atmospheric temperature or higher and means for cooling a heat conveying medium to the atmospheric temperature or lower, and means for supplying at least two selected from electric power, heat of atmospheric temperature or higher and cold of atmospheric temperature or lower to a plurality of customers, comprises: measuring amounts of electric power, heat and cold, supplied to a plurality of customers; calculating a usage charge for each customer on the basis of usage; and settling the usage charge.